This House is FULL of Honeybees

this is a bee house home to 24 colonies of honeybees and in this video I'm going to meet up with a Swiss beekeeper who is going to show me the ways of beekeeping in Switzerland I'm now 15 days into my European Adventure where I've been living out the back of my little van so far I've had some fun adventures and met up with some great people and the past couple of days I've been camping in Switzerland I stayed in my van just out from the city of Bern and I also found a nice lake so I could finally take a shower foreign the best thing in the world the other day this is Wilderness wash multi-purpose outdoor wash you can use it for body wash shampoo dishwasher deterrent and clothes deterrent 10 in one mixture of liquid and it's biodegradable so it's good for using if you're jumping in places like this [Music] lots of people ask me where are you going to wash if you haven't got a shower in your van well that is exactly what I'm going to have to do for the next few months it's all right at the moment the water isn't too cold I spent the evening editing a video in the back of my van which allowed me to test out the electrical system which seems to be working very well there's a storm going on out there so cozy in here I love the sound of the rain how's that for some breakfast plums from a tree that I parked next to the plums on that tree are so tasty so I couldn't help but stock up for the next few days after packing up the van I needed to find some Wi-Fi to upload my YouTube video first I went to McDonald's but they only let me use their Wi-Fi for one hour so then I had to drive to Burger King where I got some onion rings and there I used their unlimited Wi-Fi to upload the rest of my video I then drove out of burn to hurtsville which is a little village where I met up with The Beekeeper I think I've arrived oh gosh that's a beautiful house ah that is who I'm going to meet Fiona Hoffman ah hello good to meet you it's Jonas right yes nice to meet you I've been a beekeeper for the last year and I keep two hives in my parents Garden in England they are langstroth hives which are boxes that hold a number of movable frames that can be lifted up and out of the box to inspect Jonas was about to show me a very different way of beekeeping where the bees are kept inside a house known as a bee house foreign [Music] I'm 30 years old and I work as farmer and policeman and beekeeping is my hobby how many colonies of bees do you keep here in this house there are 24 and then I have another house two kilometers far away I have eight you might be wondering why bees are kept in these houses and Jonas explained to me that it's partly tradition here in Switzerland to keep bees in houses but also because Winters can be very harsh and the houses give a little more warmth throughout the winter normally beekeeping can't be done in the rain but in a bee house the bees can be checked up on anytime I guess it's super handy having all of your feedbacking stuff that's yes that's that's great because you have all that you need you have inside you you have not to to bring something with you you can keep your recure stuff like here and you're already ready for beekeeping yeah so let's have a look so you use the smoke from your cigarette yeah that yes to calm them a little bit down it's easier you have the uh a smoker like like normal beekeeper I don't smoke usually but in the bee house it's just to to calm down the bees so but I've never seen this sort of beekeeping before I'm used to them being in the box and lifting them up they look well watch if you spot the queen their views do you see her with a yellow point queen of this year I use the same years as us in England is it is it it's International it's International yes there is the queen [Music] so that's the last one I'm so surprised that there are just bees everywhere you mentioned this because they the the guard bees are on the other side and you're actually opening them from the back yes because normally yeah yes normally yes it did it also depends on the genetic of of the bees wow so you've done your harvesting for this year yes yes yes the end of July is the second normally the second second harvest yeah I can see how it's maybe a bit more time yes consuming because you can't just lift them up and then back down yeah I don't know anyone with a bee house in England so wow that's how you do an inspection on a beer house Hive who built this house the carpenter off of The Village okay or the neighbor he built this I helped the hives I bought like that and this one I did on my own but this this four small I did all see also on my own wow they look good I did my first bit of like carpentry DIY project trying to build my van and I realized it's really tricky to make things accurate and yeah yeah so I can imagine with a a beehive but you need to be perfect size you need this to be the right spacings and everything inside you have to to have the right space from the outside the bee house also looks beautiful with multi-colored entrances to each of the beehives I asked Jonas whether this was for a practical reason but he explained to me that it was just for nice looks some people do beekeeping for profit others like Jonas do it purely for the joy of watching and learning about bees and this is why he designed and created such a nice looking house to keep his bees in whilst I was admiring the house I saw Jonas wandering around his field looking at the ground so you're not just a beekeeper you're a mushroom forager whoa so that's gonna be your dinner tonight yes there's loads more hair as well peeled mushrooms Jonas then showed me his honey extraction room where he allowed me to taste some of this year's honey that is a really big honey how many frames can you put in there uh 24. oh those are the labels that you're talking about the yes quality control yes so is that necessary if you're going to sell honey no it's not necessary it's just the official label from the Swiss speaking Association it's full of we say volatonic forest study oh wow like the dusty the dark one that's from the aphids yes yeah that is what's in here yes and then what is this that's my special edition it's like a spring honey and the spring honey becomes very hard yeah with the time and so I I let them oh I let them become hard not much but some choice and I I reopened the jar and like in July I felt the fresh the fresh Forest onion and so it looks like this whoa do you have any of this honey set I can buy this tree you kind of really that's pretty yes wow that is very kind it hurts look at this we've got some Swiss honey rather a lot of it as well this dark stuff here is like from aphids like aphid honey and then this is spring honey which has been creamed which gives it this really nice texture that is a big dog whoa thank you very much I appreciate it thank you that was so interesting I love bee houses they just look amazing it's so nice being inside the bee house where you can inspect the bees out away from the wind and the rain and yeah it was just super interesting learning about the Swiss way of beekeeping so thanks Jonas for your time and for your honey Jonas gave me some of his Swiss honey I gave him some of my English honey so we did a little trade and now I'm about to drive to my next stop which is the country of Slovenia and I am going to have a break from camping in my van for a few days because I've got an Airbnb book in the mountains it's this beautiful off-grid wooden heart where I'm going to be living for the next five or six days so I'll see you there look at that I'm so far away from people I've got this place to myself wow

Channel: Just Alex

Views: 417,767

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Id: QP7tQLv5fzI

Length: 11min 25sec (685 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 15 2022